


I'm Going Slightly Mad

by bettysdryer



Category: Psych
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-06 02:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettysdryer/pseuds/bettysdryer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay. He was clearly overreacting. It had just been a dream -- dreams could mean any number of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Going Slightly Mad

_The hotel room door slammed loudly behind them as Carlton kicked it closed, mouth latched around Spencer’s._

_Spencer gave a slight moan as Carlton gripped his shirt collar and shoved him onto the bed. The moan made Carlton go ablaze with want - he straddled his hips and began sucking on his neck, Spencer’s moans growing louder and his fingers digging into his back._

_“How much do you want it, Spencer?” Carlton snarled, grinding slightly against his erection, making Spencer cry out loud and shudder._

_“Um… a… lot…” he managed to say, and this was good enough for Carlton, who then started un-buttoning that idiotic flannel shirt. Spencer fumbled for the zipper on Carlton’s pants and massaged his hard-on through the fabric of his boxers -- Carlton groaned and rode roughly against Spencer’s palm, the pleasure shooting through every nerve…_

_Suddenly, a loud, obnoxious beeping sound occurred._

_Carlton jerked his head up and looked around. “What the -- ?”_

\----

Carlton Lassiter sprung up in bed, his forehead drenched in sweat and his hand down his pants.

“What… the…” he said slowly, cold shock settling into his skin. He just sat there for a few moments, until he realized that his hand was still down his pants, a situation which he quickly remedied. The alarm clock was still beeping, so he threw his pillow at it and it disconnected from the wall.

“Fuck.” He fell back against the mattress and stared at the ceiling. “ _Fuck._ ”

Oh, this was not good. This was not good _at all_.

“FUCK!” he yelled, and started kicking his legs up and down in rage.

\----

Okay. He was clearly overreacting. It had just been a dream -- dreams could mean any number of things. He’d once had a dream where he was in a tie-dye world of dancing leprechauns and where he was shoved against a refrigerator by an independently-moving grocery cart. It was the same thing, really. Except without the leprechauns.

Carlton clutched his coffee tightly in his hands, his fingers drumming erratically against the cardboard. He was going to be fine. He _was_. He had a job to do -- he couldn’t very well catch criminals while thinking about that stupid dream. Which he wasn’t, of course. The mere _idea_ of it repulsed him immensely. The feel of Spencer’s chest against his, their lips moving together in synchronization, Spencer’s fingers running through his hair, their groins touching… throbbing… sweat…

“Wow, Carlton, your face is _really_ red,” said O’Hara, who was suddenly standing in front of him. 

He jumped slightly, coffee sloshing around in its container. “O’Hara! Never sneak up on me like that again, do you hear me?!”

She gave him a puzzled look. “Ah -- I waved at you from two feet away and said, ‘Good morning, Detective Lassiter’. How is that sneaking up on you?”

“Never mind.” He scowled and headed over to his desk, O’Hara on his heels. “Get back to work.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually,” she said as he took off his jacket. “There’s this case that just came up recently, and I’d… well, I’d like to be primary on it.”

“Hmm?” The sudden mental image of Spencer taking his pants off had him inexplicably distracted. “Oh -- yeah, no.”

“But -- !”

“No buts, O’Hara. When I want you to be primary on another case, _I’ll_ … let you be primary on another case.” He sat down at his desk and grabbed a file. “If you don’t mind, I have some work to do. Maybe _you_ don’t remember what that is, but -- ”

But O’Hara’s glare was enough to silence him, and she turned on her heel and stomped away, muttering something unintelligible under her breath (nothing kind, he was sure).

Carlton leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. It was fine. It was going to be fine. He just had to distract himself, was all -- a hard day’s work at the office was sure to be enough to get his mind off of that ridiculous dream. Just so long as --

“Hey there, Lassie!”

…Spencer didn’t show up. Carlton bit back the urge to groan with misery as he looked up at Spencer’s beaming face. 

“Wow, you look like hell,” Spencer remarked cheerfully, plopping himself down on his desk. “Might I recommend a beautician for your beautificational needs? There’s this great one downtown who I think _might_ be able to make you look half-way presentable. A hair-cut there, some make-up there… maybe even a pretty little bow! You’d clean up nicely with a bow, Lassie.”

“Get. Off. My. Desk,” Carlton said bitingly, but Spencer didn’t move. Carlton’s overactive, perverted imagination was going into overdrive, and having Spencer mere inches away was… well, it certainly wasn’t _helping_.

“So, what’s up? Any new cases for us to take a crack at?” 

“No. Go away.”

“Aww, c’mon, Lassie! We haven’t had any new cases in a whole week. We’re bored!”

“It’s true,” Guster piped up. “I was so bored yesterday, I actually went to my _real job_.”

“I know! It’s just terrible, Lassie, can’t you see? Don’t make Gus do his real job when he could be helping me psychically catch criminals. Be a good Samaritan!”

“All right, _fine_ ,” he snarled, and tossed a random file in their direction. “Do whatever’s in that one.”

Spencer took a brief look through the folder, then snapped it shut and said, “It was the plumber. Can you give us a _real_ case now, please?”

“No. Now _go away_.”

“Hmmph.” Spencer stuck his nose in the air. “Fine. We’ll ask the _Chief._ C’mon, Gus.” Spencer trotted away haughtily, Guster rolling his eyes and following.

Lassiter waited until they were out of his sight before he began slamming his head against his desk repeatedly.

There was only one solution to a problem like this.

Shooting range.

\----

Approximately twenty-three targets had been annihilated by Carlton’s shooting skills before the door slammed open, revealing a harassed-looking O’Hara. She was holding up a case file.

Carlton took off his ear muffs. “What is it?” he asked, slightly annoyed at this interruption in his meditative process.

“Seriously? _This_ is the case you give me?” She waved the case file about in an agitated manner. “Could you have given me something _more_ menial and pointless to do?”

Carlton thought for a second. “Yeah, probably.”

“Ugh!” O’Hara stormed out in rage, shutting the door so hard behind her that, if it had been made of glass, would have shattered. Carlton shrugged and went back to his shooting.

See, _this_ was nice. No psychiatrists trying to get him to talk about his “feelings”, no pieces of cardboard with ink blobs on them (seriously, what a waste of time _that_ exercise had been)... nope, just him, his gun, and a healthy way of releasing his pent-up anger and frustrations.

In this case, his sexual frustrations.

Carlton made a face. The words “sexual” and “Shawn Spencer” should never be connected in his mind in any sort of way, except if the sentence is “The suspected sexual assailant punched Shawn Spencer in the face when he went into another one of his idiotic ‘trances’.” After all, he _hated_ Spencer.

…Well, okay, that wasn’t entirely true. He did sort of like him, in a grudging way. With a little -- well, a lot -- more discipline, Carlton could actually see Spencer being a decent cop, if he would just drop the whole psychic act. Which was never going to happen, of course. Still, though… Spencer in a police uniform… with a shoulder holster… gripping his gun and firing at a suspect, chasing him down an alleyway, breathing heavily… sweat…

Carlton began firing more rapidly.

\----

Carlton emerged from the shooting range twenty minutes later to complete and utter chaos.

“What the hell’s going on?” Carlton asked a passing McNab. 

“There’s a robbery-in-progress going on right now,” McNab said, slightly breathless.

“Where?”

McNab told him, and Carlton sprinted outside to the squad car, where O’Hara was already opening the door.

“God, what took you so long?” she asked him as he headed to the front seat. “And hey, I was going to drive!”

“Not today, you’re not.” He attempted to shove his way past her, but she was holding her ground.

“Hey, listen!” O’Hara said angrily, fists on her hips. “You’ve been treating me like crap all day for no reason, and I deserve at least _one thing_. And it’s about time I get to drive the squad car anyway, so _give up the seat_.”

Carlton stared at her for a second, then sighed in exasperation and went over to the passenger side. “Fine, O’Hara, but _only_ because there’s no time to argue with you.”

O’Hara smiled in triumph and climbed into the front, turning on the sirens and then peeling out of the parking lot.

\----

When they finally got there, the perpetrators were already being escorted out of the building, firmly secured in handcuffs. Carlton pouted slightly and pulled his own handcuffs out of his pocket.

“I haven’t used these in over a week,” he said mournfully.

“Oh, don’t worry; I’m sure you’ll be able to use them before long.”

“How do you know that?”

The next thing they knew, one of the suspects had pulled a Houdini and slipped out of his handcuffs; the officers being momentarily startled, the suspect made a run for it.

Carlton didn’t get a chance to ask O’Hara how she knew that was going to happen before they had both leapt out of the car at the same time, they being closer to the suspect than the others. 

The suspect looked over his shoulder and saw them chasing him; he started running faster.

“Stop!” O’Hara yelled. “We’re SBPD --”

The suspect was very decisively ignoring them. He shoved over a fruit stand on the sidewalk to block their path and kept running. Carlton almost slipped on a banana but O’Hara managed to catch him before he fell. They continued the pursuit, the fruit stand owner’s loud protests growing fainter and fainter as they progressed down the street.

“Why does he keep running in a straight line?” Carlton asked, panting. “Why hasn’t he cut down an alleyway yet or something?”

Almost right after the words had left his mouth, the suspect turned into an alleyway, Carlton and O’Hara right on his heels. He was about to hop the fence over to the other side when Carlton managed to grab a hold of his shirt and slam him against the brick wall of an adjacent building. 

“You have the right to remain silent,” he said, pulling his handcuffs back out of his pocket. “Anything you say can and will be held against you --”

He happened to glance out of the corner of his eye, and saw Spencer staring at them from the opening of the alleyway.

His eyes met Spencer’s for a second -- just a second -- and his stomach fluttered strangely, and his heart started hammering erratically --

A second that the suspect took advantage of by kicking Carlton in a sensitive area and jumping over the fence before anyone could react.

“Aaah -- !” Carlton keeled over, the pain coming through in waves. “That son of a -- !” He wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the suspect or Spencer, who was still standing there like the fool he was.

O’Hara stared at Carlton in disbelief. “Lassiter! How could you -- how could you just let him _get away_?”

“Pain…” he groaned, rolling to his side, holding onto the injured body part.

“Wow, Lassie; you really screwed that up, huh?” Spencer asked obviously.

Carlton glared (unfortunately) metaphorical daggers at him.

\----

His monumental screw-up that afternoon had convinced Carlton that he should probably talk to that damned psychiatrist of his. This ridiculous “crush”, or whatever it was, was seriously impeding his professional life, which meant that the “crush” needed to be… crushed. Immediately. Clearly he wasn’t going to be able to do this by himself, so outside help was called for, much to his chagrin.

“Hello, Carlton,” his psychiatrist said serenely as he sat down on the other chair. “How are you today?”

“Not so good, actually,” he said, un-buttoning his blazer and fanning it to his sides. “I… I allowed a suspect to escape today.”

“And how does that make you feel?” she asked.

Carlton bit back the urge to throttle her for such an idiotic question and answered calmly, “Not… great. The reason I let him escape is…” He hesitated. He hadn’t even fully admitted it to himself yet; how could he possibly tell his _therapist_?

“You’re in a safe place, Carlton,” the psychiatrist said, voice soothing. “You can tell me anything.”

“Well… you remember Shawn Spencer, right?”

“Of course. You complain about him every single session.”

“Well, uh, you see…” He swallowed and loosened his tie a bit. “I had this dream last night. A very… _odd_ dream. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day, and it’s been severely affecting me at work. And that is, uh. How the suspect escaped.”

“And what happened in this dream?” She poised her pen over her clipboard.

Carlton pursed his lips and pondered for a few moments. Maybe coming here had been a mistake…

“Carlton?”

“Never mind,” he said hastily, standing up. “Just forget it.” He started heading towards the door when the psychiatrist gently grabbed his arm.

He looked down at her hand, then looked up at her. “Are you _touching_ me?”

“Carlton, clearly something is troubling you, and I think it’s best if we sit down and got to the root of the problem,” she said, guiding him back to his seat.

“All right, _fine_ ,” he snapped, thoroughly frustrated now. “You wanna know what the dream was about? Do you? It was about me and Shawn Spencer --” (he had to mouth the next part a few times before he could finally spit it out) “ _making out_ in a hotel room, and I can’t stop thinking about it and I think I have some kind of insipid _crush_ on the moron and he was there when I was about to handcuff the perp and he distracted me and that’s how the suspect got away, and all of my fantasies involving him seem to always end in sweat somehow, and isn’t there some kind of pill I can take so I don’t feel anything even remotely sexual towards this guy anymore?”

“There’s no magical pill that can cure homosexuality,” she said, patting him on the knee reassuringly.

“What -- I am not _homosexual_ , okay? I mean -- so yeah, I experimented a few times in college; but who hasn’t? And… and maybe once at the Police Academy. But that was an accident.”

She scrunched her brows. “Accident?”

“Long story. But still, it doesn’t mean that I’m _gay_. I love women! I subscribe to _Maxim_. I was married. I’ve fallen in _love_ with women. Just because once in a while I’ll notice if a guy looks good, or I’ll look at gay porn on the Internet occasionally, doesn’t mean -- oh God, I’m gay, aren’t I?” He put his head in his hands.

The psychiatrist laughed. “Sexuality isn’t an all-or-nothing thing, Carlton. No one is one-hundred percent straight or one-hundred percent gay. It’s fluid. It changes.”

“Well…” He supposed he did know that, intellectually speaking. The defensive way in which he had replied was more out of a base instinct than anything -- survival. He worked for the police, after all; a place not traditionally very welcoming of anything except the straight and narrow. “But still, this Spencer situation. Maybe sexuality is fluid, but that doesn’t mean that I should be attracted to _him_ , on any sort of level… _ever_.”

“We can’t control who we are attracted to. But, if it’s really bothering you that much, maybe you should talk with him about this. Sort it out.”

“Oh, _no_. That is _not_ happening.” Dear God, he would never hear the _end_ of it. “Just… no. But I need to nip this in the bud, and fast.” He snapped his fingers dominantly to prove his point. 

“You can’t just get over someone instantly by sheer will-power.”

“But I thought that was what the prescription pad was for?”

The psychiatrist sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“There has to be _some_ sort of drug for this,” he insisted. 

“Look, Carlton --”

“Hell, I wouldn’t even mind having ALL of my sexual urges squashed, really. Who needs ‘em?”

“This is going to be a long session, isn’t it,” the psychiatrist said to herself, looking up at the clock.

“You’re damn right it’s going to be a long session -- unless I get some _medication_.” He was not going to back down; not this time.

\----

An hour later, Carlton emerged from the office, his psychiatrist behind him.

“Now, what was the plan, Carlton?” she asked him.

He sighed heavily. “Write about my feelings in my blog and try to talk to Spencer about it,” he said in a mild deadpan.

“Good. I know it’ll be scary, but trust me; you’ll thank me later.”

 _I doubt that_ , he thought, but said nothing and forced a tight-lipped smile as she went back in her office and closed the door.

As soon as she couldn’t see him, Carlton scowled and stalked out of the building angrily.

He was getting a new psychiatrist first thing tomorrow.

\----

“Wow, you don’t look so good. Again,” O’Hara observed as Carlton came into work the next day, heavy bags under his eyes and a very large cup of coffee in his hand.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said in a dull, zombie-like voice, and he plopped down on his chair. This wasn’t strictly true -- he had actively _made_ himself not go to bed out of fear of having that dream again. Lots of caffeine, solitaire, Scrabble, and late-night television had been involved in this master plan of his to not catch a wink of sleep.

He hadn’t really thought it through all that well.

His head fell down on his desk with a thunk, but he couldn’t lose consciousness. He was much, much too wired to actually sleep, even though his body was desperately crying out for it.

O’Hara looked concerned. “Maybe you should take today off,” she said.

Carlton’s head shot up. “No! No, I can’t. I can’t take off, not today… too many important things… to be… done…” His mind drifted off again.

“Carlton? Carlton!” O’Hara snapped her fingers in front of his face.

He blinked and instantly came out of his reverie. “Huh?”

“Seriously, you need to go home. I can handle the caseload today; it’s really no big deal.”

“Jules!” Spencer was coming down the hallway towards them. Guster was at his side, texting someone on his cell phone. “I had a vision this morning, and I think I know what the victim was -- ” He saw Carlton and stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes widening slightly. “Uh…”

“Oh, don’t mind him; he didn’t get any sleep last night,” O’Hara said, waving her hand dismissively. “He was just about to go home; weren’t you, Carlton?”

There was something he knew he had to tell Spencer, but he couldn’t remember what it was. “You…” He pointed his finger at Spencer, who looked strangely… frightened? “You… God damn, I can’t remember what I was going to say. Never mind.” He slowly stood up, his legs wobbling slightly. “Guess I’ll… take the bus… go home… get some shut-eye…”

“Y-yeah, you do that, Lassie,” Spencer said in a tone that was clearly meant to be mocking but instead came out faint. 

“Bye,” Carlton said to no one in particular, and casually brushed against Spencer as he left; Spencer reacted to this by jumping and slamming right into Guster.

“What the --” Guster shoved Spencer, looking vastly irritated. “What the hell, Shawn! I swear to God, you’ve been acting so weird all day.”

“I have not!”

“Yes, you have! You’ve been jumpy since this morning when I picked you up at your house. We almost got into an accident because your hand jumped next to the gear shift!”

“That is utterly ridiculous. For your information, I was changing the station on the radio, and I was… startled.”

“Yeah -- startled by a _squirrel_ , Shawn.”

“I’ll have you know that that squirrel was clearly about to attack the windshield! I was acting in defense of your car, Gus!”

“Oh, _please_.”

Carlton didn’t get to hear the rest of their argument, however, as he was already out the door.

\----

After a nice, long, twelve hour sleep (courtesy of sleeping pills), Carlton awoke and decided to go out and get some food. The fact that his stomach was rumbling quite loudly had been his first clue that he needed some nourishment.

He was sitting in the nearby McDonald’s, eating a good ol’ Big Mac, when Spencer walked into the restauarant. 

Some lettuce fell stupidly out of his mouth as he stared at Spencer, who hadn’t noticed him yet and was waiting in line at the front, whistling and shifting his feet back and forth. His heart started racing again, just like last time, and he felt his face get a little hot. And there was a new, added feeling to the mix -- a strange sort of… affection?

Carlton let out a slow breath of air. What was he going to do?

“Lassie?” Spencer had finally seen him -- he was frozen mid-foot-shift, and he was staring at Carlton with something vaguely like terror in his eyes. “What’re you doing?”

“Eating; what’re you doing?” he replied dryly. He hesitated, then said, “C’mon; sit down.”

Spencer looked shocked. “You’re _actually_ asking me to sit down with you?”

Carlton glared. “Don’t make me regret this.”

Spencer seemed extremely conflicted; he kept moving towards and from Carlton, like there was some sort of invisible line that he didn’t want to cross, until finally he just came over and sat across from him in the booth.

“So, what’s up?” Spencer asked, tossing his arm across the back of his seat. Despite the casual posture, however, his body was very tense. 

“Not a lot.” He looked at Spencer curiously. “What’s up with _you_?”

“What d’you mean?” he said nonchalantly. “Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s perfectly fine!”

“I never said anything was wrong. You can be a really bad actor, you know.”

“How dare you!” he cried in mock outrage, relaxing slightly. Obviously, sarcasm was his safe harbor -- Carlton could relate. “I could’ve been an Oscar-winner, had I not decided to pursue a career in the psychic arts, in order to help my fellow man.”

“Cut the crap, Spencer,” Carlton said, rolling his eyes. “What’s the matter?”

“Why do you even _care_?”

“I… I don’t; I was just wondering. I’m a detective. I ask questions. It’s what I do.”

“And _I’m_ the bad actor.”

“Oh, shut up.”

They sat in silence for a minute, when Spencer said, “I should go. I can’t --” He abruptly stopped speaking, chewing his lip. He was looking everywhere but at Carlton.

Carlton chewed his lip too, carefully studying Spencer’s face. Something about Spencer’s behavior seemed oddly familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite…

_Oh. Maybe…_

“I’ve been having some weird dreams lately,” Carlton said offhandedly, taking another bite of his hamburger. 

“You… have, have you?” Spencer looked up curiously.

“Yeah. It’s why I couldn’t go to sleep last night. Or, wouldn’t, really. I didn’t want to have the dream again.” He swallowed. “You ever have dreams like that, Spencer? Dreams that you just couldn’t explain?” Even if his suspicions were incorrect, it was an innocent topic enough.

“Yes…” Spencer said slowly, shifting in his seat a bit. “Last night, actually. Very strange stuff.”

“What happened in it?”

“What happened in _yours_?”

“You tell me first.”

“No way, dude; you brought it up, so you have to tell first.”

“I was the one who _asked_ first, which you means you have to answer first.”

“But I wasn’t the one who started this whole conversation.”

“This is idiotic.”

“I agree. So, just tell me your dream and we can move on with our lives.”

“All right, fine. It was… it was a rather sexual dream.”

“Mine was too. Did yours involve whipped cream and feather head-dresses as well?”

“…No.”

“Darn. But please, continue.”

“I woke up before it got too… steamy, though. What about you?”

“Who was in your dream?”

“Do we need to have the whole ‘I asked first’ conversation again?”

“No. My dream was much the same, only I didn’t wake up before it was over.”

“And it’s been bothering you the entire day, hasn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“Can’t concentrate on anything…”

“Cannot.”

“It’s on the back of your mind constantly --”

“And when you see the person you start freaking out.”

“Yes. And dirty thoughts will suddenly pop into your mind at very inappropriate times.”

“Well, that’s a matter of course for me anyway, but yes.”

“And you want to do something about it, but you can’t.”

“Because it would be highly inappropriate and you have always hated this person’s guts anyway.”

“Exactly.”

They had been leaning closer and closer during the course of this exchange, and now their noses were practically touching, their breaths intermingling. Carlton was getting incredibly hard, and he had a good idea that Spencer was as well.

“Just to… check and see if we’re on the same page here,” Spencer said, “we’re both talking about how we had dirty dreams about each other, right?”

“Yep.”

“Works for me. You wanna get out of here?”

“Definitely.”

They practically ran out of the restaurant to Carlton’s car.

“You have to admit,” Spencer said as he opened the passenger door, “this has kind of been building up for a while.”

Carlton thought about that for a second. “You’re probably right, but I don’t really want to talk about that right now.”

“Good, ‘cause neither do I.” They buckled their seat-belts, and Carlton shot out of the parking lot as fast as he could without breaking the speed limit.

“Do you think you could put on the siren?”

“Shut up, Spencer.”

"What? This is a perfectly legitimate emergency --"

"SHUT UP."

\----

Carlton’s bedroom door slammed loudly behind them as Carlton kicked it closed, mouth latched around Spencer’s. 

Spencer gave a slight moan as Carlton gripped his shirt collar and shoved him onto the bed. The moan made Carlton go ablaze with want - he straddled his hips and began sucking on his neck, Spencer’s moans growing louder and his fingers digging into his back.

“How much do you want it, Spencer?” Carlton snarled, grinding slightly against his erection, making Spencer cry out loud and shudder.

“Um… a… lot…” he managed to say, and this was good enough for Carlton, who then started un-buttoning that idiotic flannel shirt. Spencer fumbled for the zipper on Carlton’s pants and massaged his hard-on through the fabric of his boxers -- Carlton groaned and rode roughly against Spencer’s palm, the pleasure shooting through every nerve…

Carlton froze. Wait a second.

“Something wrong?” Spencer asked the immobile Carlton.

“This all seems… extremely familiar…” he said, looking around.

“What’re you _talking_ about?”

“I dunno. Forget it.” Carlton took off his shirt and soon forgot his troubles when Spencer did something… creative.

This was all completely insane and made absolutely no sense at all, but Carlton was discovering that he liked it that way.


End file.
